Bounded Observer-Based Consensus Algorithm for Robust Finite-Time Tracking Control of Multiple Nonholonomic Chained-Form Systems

This article is concerned with the leader–follower consensus tracking problem for multiagent systems with nonholonomic high-order chained-form dynamics subject to external disturbances. A novel distributed and bounded observer is first developed for each follower to estimate the leader information in a finite time. Then, a bounded fast terminal sliding-mode control protocol is constructed for each follower to track the estimated leader's states leading to the fast convergence performance as well as strong robustness. Contrary to some existing finite-time consensus tracking schemes, the control input constraint is taken into account by utilizing hyperbolic tangent saturation function to reduce the risk of the actuator saturation. Moreover, an approximation-based technique is introduced to reduce the conservatism of the upper bound of convergence time. Finally, some simulations for a set of wheeled mobile robots are carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed control algorithm.